Rock may crush Scissors, but not Steel

Hubby said he'd get my old, beloved pizza stone cut down for me to fit in the Gagg oven, so along with the pizza steel in one, I could utilize both cavities for last week's big pizza feed.  Unfortunately, he thought he could do that just minutes before the crowd arrived, forgetting or not thinking that it would have to heat for an hour or more to be of any use.  That meant I enlisted the help of the special, Gaggenau baking stone and element again, giving them another chance to prove their worth.

Kitchen forum friend JC thought there might be something amiss with my Gagg stone, because of the white crusts I got on previous pizza baking outings.  So this time, I had Prince CuddleBunny fetch the infrared thermometer Hubby got in a goody bag at a conference.  After preheating for well over an hour at 500, the surface read about 500 degrees.  So I'd say the element is doing its job.

Speaking of temperature, that is part of what makes the competition between the Gagg stone and the baking steel a little bit of an unfair fight.  The steel bakes pizzas well at higher heats than the stone does.  I need to keep the stone at about 475 when I'm baking pizzas, but the steel can stay at 500.  

As you can see from photos I took well into the pizza feed, I wasn't getting equal results from the different surfaces.

The first "pop"...Just 2 or 3 minutes in, shortly after the pizza hits the hot, hot surface:

On the Gaggenau stone and element set

The great rise on the baking steel

And the baking steel pizza is beautifully done in about 8 or 9 minutes, 

while, at that same point, the Gaggenau pizza stone pizza needs an additional 5 to 7 minutes.  

I admit that I still use parchment on the stone, and my friend
 says that may be affecting my result.  But that would mean
forming each pizza, one at a time, directly on cornmeal on
the pizza peel, and that just wouldn't work well
for the number of pizzas I need to bake.

That means the steel put out at least 3 pizzas to the stone set's 2.  My guess would be that I baked 8 pizzas on the stone, and 13 better ones on the steel.

I'm done.  The Gaggenau baking stone set loses again.  It's not worth my time (and the muscles to heft it around) for that result, and even though I got a deal at the time I bought the oven, it still far more than the price of a baking steel or other stone options, and wasn't worth the expense.  I still hope Hubby gets to cutting down my formerly favorite stone, and then I can compare it to the steel.  I've missed using the double oven to its full capacity to make pizza!

Pizza Prepping

Since my planned posts for this month are going to slop into November, I'm going to keep today's post short.  After all, I have 20-some teens and coaches ready to descend on our home for the yearly pizza feed.  

In a past year we made the mistake of having the pizza feed with the entire team, and it was TOO MUCH!  We have gone back to hosting only those who qualified, at the league championship meet, to move on to the district championship meet... the last step before 'State.'

This year both the boys' and girls' varsity teams qualified.  Prince Go-for-It is running in the 5th varsity spot, and is poised to run his season's best.  Princess Eager, qualifying in the #9 spot for the girls' team, is going along as a 'sub.'  Only the top 7 run, unless there is an injury, for which the substitutes are needed to step in.  Only a freshman, and in her first year of competing, this was her goal.  She gets to go to the meet, but without the pressure!

I was going to post latest running pics here, but my photo library is "repairing itself," and that could take hours!

Anyway, tonight it's about feeding them, contributing to their carbo-load for the week, so right now it's about getting busy in the kitchen!  :-)

Write31days.com

25 Days In, and No Pizza?

In the last few years, this blog has been full of pizza.  Pizza crust recipes, different surfaces on which to bake pizzas, and the quest for the best result.  A crispy, airy crust, and just the right color on top and bottom.  So, in a 31-day blogging fest, you might have expected to read something about pizza.

I didn't make much pizza this summer, as I was often away at baseball tournaments on Friday nights. Though not many in number, I did have one 'finally perfect' result.  I can't offer much that I did differently, as I used my go-to crust recipe, and used the pizza steel and the most successful baking method I had found previously.

What was different was that I had to restart the dough, so it was newly mixed and only had  2 or 3 days in the bucket in the refrigerator before I used it.  It seemed a bit dryer, and very elastic -- almost rubbery.  It fought back when I tried to spread it, so I had to spread, and let it rest, spread more, and let it rest again, before being able to spread it as large as I wanted it.  So, it took, both, more work and more time, than I'm used to.

But, BAM!  

That first pizza out of the oven told me something.  My mom said my grandma always told her that the more difficult the pie crust was to work with, the better baked crust you got.  I don't think she knew that her adage would work with 'pizza pie,' too!

To be honest, after what it took to get that result really made me wonder if it was worth it!  ;-)


I am very much out of the pizza baking mode.  I will have to dive back in, though, as our yearly cross-country team pizza feed is coming up!!

Write31days.com

Pizza Steel - Round Number Successful!

I finally got GREAT pizza crust.  Done on top and bottom, in only 7 minutes, and with airy bubbles in the middle. --And this airy crust, not just at the edges, but all the way to the center of the pie.  

This latter trait is something I've been striving for more recently, having noted it as a goal in many of the pizza crust making articles I've read.  This started me looking at my crusts, which often seemed airy on the untopped and thicker edge, but more compressed and wettish on the rest.  It didn't look wonderful, just studying it, but, frankly, it didn't really have a noticeably negative effect on the taste or eating experience.  But still, I wanted it all, and maybe I was missing something in the experience I just didn't know about yet!

The best photo I have of the compressed crust.   I
hadn't taken many profile shots of the crust.  It just wasn't pretty.

Sooo...what was different this last time?  

It's funny to realize that impatience uncovered that, probably, patience is the key.

I actually had a little time on my hands at mid-afternoon.  I meant only to set the bucket of dough out of the fridge, as I've come to think that it being closer to room temperature may lead to a better rise.  But I was impatient, and wanted something to do, so started in on making the pizzas early.

I placed balls of dough on parchment, and let them rest, while I placed the steel in the oven (on the rack, 2nd position from the top, as instructed).  I turned the oven to its hottest setting (550 degrees), and used the mode with full bottom and full top heat.  On the Gaggenau oven's display, this is shown with a black line in 3 sections across the top and bottom.

Last week's Chicken Garlic with White Sauce

I then set in spreading the dough, making the sauce, and preparing the toppings.  I assembled the pizzas.

The oven was still coming to temperature, and the pizzas were ready to go... The oven would take a bit longer to heat the stone, and the family would be even longer in arriving home to eat after sports practices and such.  So I went away and busied myself otherwise for well over an hour.


When ready to bake, I switched the oven to

500 degrees, and full bottom heat, partial top heat.  





Right away, I saw a good 'pop.'  There was an immediate rise and bubbles formed in the crust.  I could see active bubbling inside the translucent crust bubbles!  It's hard to describe and impossible to get photos of to share with you.

I found that the oven loses heat pretty quickly... I got a significant drop (like 50 - 75 degrees) when I put in pizzas or took them out.  This meant I had to wait between each pizza for the oven to regain heat.  This would be a big problem during a sports team pizza feed.  But for every-Friday pizza night, it's a small annoyance.

My impatience at starting the pizzas taught me that patience, in letting them rest and rise, is the key.  Funny that I needed to do this, when pizzerias, and most pizza crust recipes, don't have a long rise time.  As for the difference in experience, the taste is the same, but the light crunch over the lighter interior is nice.  

Not that I'm fully done experimenting, but I'm pretty happy, for the second week in a row, with this kind of result:

 Tonight's Sausage-Mushroom-Onion with Classic Red Sauce

Pizza Steel, Round 2

I tried everything at once!  

I know that's not very scientific, because now I don't know which ingredient or method got me which result.  But I just wanted some great pizza... and I wanted it NOW.

1) A few hours ahead of pizza-baking time, I added a couple teaspoons of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon yeast, dissolved in a minimal amount of water to my dough bucket, and left it sit at room temperature.

2) When I turned on the oven to preheat, I didn't wait to form my pizzas, but did it right away, so they could rest and rise while the oven and Baking Steel heated for 45 minutes to an hour.

3) Just before putting in the first pizza, I turned the oven to Broil for several minutes.  

4) When I put in the pizza, I returned the oven mode to Bake.  But after several minutes of baking, when the bottom crust seemed brown enough, I turned it back to Broil to finish the top.

5) I left it on Broil when I took out Pizza #1 to repeat the method for the next pizza.

Results:

GREAT "pop" of the crust... Quick rise and some bubbles formed just after putting the pizzas in the oven....and a browned bottom crust!

But, alas.... sigh... even though the pizza was browned, it was on the soft and bready side, instead of lightly crispy-crusty like we wanted.

That's the advantage of our weekly Pizza Night... It's not too long before we try again and hope to do better.  So... More later!


You might also be interested in Pizza Steeling, First Try

Pizza Steeling, First Try

You may remember that I mentioned wanting to try the Baking Steel in my most recent pizza baking post.  Well, last week, I was honored and blessed to receive it as a "because-I-want-to" gift from a friend!

She'd told me it was coming, and the whole family was intrigued and excited.  I got a text from Princess Sassy while visiting my dad:  "Something came for you today.  It's not very big, but it's HEAVY.  Maybe your pizza steel?!  :-)"

Yep!  So, last Friday was its maiden voyage.

It didn't arrive looking like this... It was beautiful and clean.
I just forgot to take its picture!

I'd read and received a few tips about using the steel, but figured I'd start with the directions that came in the box:  Preheat the oven and steel to 500 degrees for at least 45 minutes, placing the steel on a rack in the 2nd from the top position in the oven.





















Since the blogs I'd read, praising the stone, mentioned baking times like 5 minutes to a slightly charred pizza and a very noticeable "Pop" or quick rise of the dough, I was disappointed that our first pizza took over 12 minutes, and was still looking pretty white, and not at all puffy.  

The crust was very delicately crispy on the outside, though, and the family was declaring the Baking Steel a winner.

For pizza #2 I tried one of the tips I'd read most often... Turn the oven to broil for a few minutes, then back to bake, just before putting the pizza on the stone.  That, however, also didn't seem to improve browning, rising, or timing.


My crust was just not browning, especially evident around the edges on top.  I wondered if it may be the recipe.  Sugar in the dough might help it brown, but I haven't had to do that before.  Even though the dough rises nicely in the bucket through the week, boosting the dough with a bit of yeast might help?  Or maybe making sure to bring the dough to room temperature before baking?  I'm not sure.  

More testing to be done!!

Pizza: One Step Back

Prince CuddleBunny was sick on New Year's Day and a few days preceding.  He had a sore throat, cough, headache, and fever.  No upset tummy, but no appetite, either.  So I was happy when he was finally hungry, and wanted to make him whatever sounded good...

Pizza.

I had dough made, of course, since I always replenish my dough bucket the same night I use any.  But he was hungry "NOW," and with heating the oven and heavy stone, pizza is not really a "now" meal.

So I thought a bit, and decided to go back a ways, to before I'd ever heard of pizza stones, and use a cookie sheet at 425 degrees, like my mom did when I was a kid.    The oven was preheated by the time I spread the dough and topped it, so no extra waiting, like with the stone, which takes about an hour to heat.

Last Friday's version of the cookie-sheet pizza:
round and on parchment, so I could make our usual 5 pies.
I slid these onto the hot cookie sheet, using the pizza peel.

I had one of the blue pan-racks already in the oven cavity, so that's what I used as a rack, in the bottom position, and just put the cookie sheet on that.  I used the Bake mode, so it only heated from the bottom.  After all, that's the only option we had when I was a kid!










The pizza came out great in about under 20 minutes.  The top was nicely browned and the crust was crispy and brown, too!  A result I've been fighting and fighting to achieve on the expensive integrated Gaggenau pizza stone.  I'm happy to have found this method, but still frustrated that something made especially to do this job, and was so expensive, just doesn't come through.

This one, I put directly on the blue pan, without the
cookie sheet in between.  The crust got a little too dark.
--But still preferable to too pale and limp.

A couple of Kitchen forum friends have suggested trying a Baking Steel. Sur la Table offers one (14" x 13") that's available on Amazon, which is made in USA by Stoughton Steel, the same as the original Baking Steel (14" x 16") offered here.  The basic model is a 1/4 inch thick piece of steel, used similarly to, but instead of a stone, and from reading the reviews (here... and here), sounds amazing.  I have a decent result with the cookie sheet, but it sounds like the baking steel will allow me to go back to the high heat, quick-turnaround, great-every-time type of pizza baking I'd gotten used to in my Wolf oven.  It will just barely fit in my silly, shallow oven, and at almost $80, the price tag is slowing me down a bit.  But I think that, eventually, --and probably sooner rather than later, because I'm impatient-- I'll have to give it a try.

Did you notice the cutting board in the last couple of pics?  That's my beautiful Christmas gift from Prince CuddleBunny.  He enlisted his dad's help and made me this beautiful pizza board... 14" in diameter by 2" thick.  I love it!!

If it Ain't Broke...

There is something to be said for sticking with what you know works.  But I was hoping for something that was extra special for the expense and "hype!"

I'm talking about pizza in my new Gaggenau oven again.  (2 sad pizza baking attempts are discussed in Gagg Pizza! and in Gagg Pizza, Strike 2.)

For this past weekend's pizza, I used a method closest to what we considered "tried and true" in previous ovens (described here), but using the Gaggenau stone.  



I preheated the oven, with the stone in place at the lowest oven rack position, to 550 degrees.  I used top and bottom heat for this part.


When I put in pizzas, I switched to bottom heat only.  No fans to blow hot air and hurry the tops.

In 8 to 10 minutes, we had the results to which we'd become accustomed and that we like... Brown, bubbly tops, and crispy crust, also a bit brown.



But this method left the Gaggenau element sitting in the drawer.  After I'd preheated too long to change things, I thought that I could've preheated the oven and stone using the element and the pizza stone oven mode that runs the fan.  Then I could've switched the oven to just bottom heat when I put in the pizzas, as I did this time.  I could've turned the stone mode back on if the stone started to cool, then back to no-fan for the pizzas.  

I'll try that next time.

Gagg Pizza, Strike 2

A couple of weeks ago, I shared about our first use of the special Gaggenau pizza stone and element.  We weren't overly thrilled with the result... Nicely to overly brown tops, but underdone crust.  

I thought that using a 550 degree setting was too high, so planned to try a lower setting next time.  I thought would require longer baking time, and maybe give the bottoms long enough to cook through before the tops got too brown.

So this week, I tried heating the stone to 550 degrees, but when I put in the pizzas, I turned the oven down to 450.

I apologize for the less-than-stellar phone photos!
One of the kids had my camera elsewhere that evening.

At 9 minutes, the top on the first one looked nice, but I checked the underside and it was still white.  I cooked that one for 3 more minutes, and it was doughy.

The next ones I cooked for 15 minutes.  The tops got VERY brown, but the crusts never got golden brown.



























I am disappointed.  I'm not sure where to go from here.

I wish I could turn the fan off in this mode, and only bake the pizzas with the use of the element under the stone.  I could do as I've done before and use the mode that uses only the lower oven element and no fan.  But that defeats the purpose of having the special element that tucks in just under the stone, so I want to look into this further.  

I think I'll contact the distributor and see if they have further advice, and I'll update you as there is more news.

Gagg Pizza!

...Not to be confused, of course, with "Gag, pizza!"  ;-)

You may have guessed... My Gaggenau pizza stone and element arrived!

I received 4 parts... The exposed element, the rack that slides into the oven, the stone that sits on the rack, and a pizza peel, or "wooden pusher," as the included literature call it.  (Does 'pizza peel' not translate well in German?)

This is the new one compared to the one I already use.
Since it's just 1/4 or 3/8" plywood, the handle is less than comfy.
But I didn't expect it at all, so for 'free,' I guess it's OK

The instructions had words that got me started, but with translation like pizza peel = wooden pusher, I found the illustrations more helpful.  When the shapes of the parts in my hands didn't match the shapes of those in the drawing, however, I had to play until it worked.

You might barely be able to see that the wire rack is
shaped differently at the front corner than the back,
which is not the case in the diagram.  This took roughly
2 tries and 10 seconds to figure out by trial and error.  ;-)

You can see here how the stone kind of wraps
over the element

I turned to the instructions again when it was time to turn on the oven and heat the stone for use.  

Again a little unhelpful, as it said only to "preheat the oven to the temperature stated in the recipe."  And that it would require more preheating time than usual, which I'd expected.  Although, the rep told me I wouldn't have to preheat as long as I had with the Wolf, in which I heated the stone for an hour after preheating the oven.

I checked the manual and, also, the recipe book I'd been given at the showroom.  No pizza recipes or pizza baking guidelines in the baking charts.  The only clue was included in the chart of heating modes, their symbols and uses.  I think the graphic was only supposed to be an example, but as it was the only hint I had, I went with it, and set the oven to 550 degrees.

As it heated, I set the 'count-up' timer, so I would know in the future how long I needed to plan for preheating.  I'm sure I'm saving a few minutes, but it was still near an hour to reach temperature.

The count-up timer is at the top left.  This was a couple
minutes after I noticed it'd reached temperature.
The clock is next to the timer.  Did I ever tell you how
tiny it is?  1/8 of an inch.  How helpful, especially from a distance!

I had to make the pizzas much smaller than I usually do, since the stone is only 12" deep.  No more 15" pizzas!  But I could fit 2 on, side-by-side, so that helped.  

Hubby swooped in for the first try... Still hot!

Again, I set the count-up timer, so I could watch the first set and see how long to set the timer for the rest.  In an impressive 5 1/2 minutes, the pizza was beautifully browned on the top and golden brown on the bottom....









Beautiful, yes, but, not too impressive, as it was still too doughy on the inside.  I cooked the next ones a bit longer, but even though the top was getting to the maximum browning I could stand, the crust wasn't done enough inside for us.  

That's when I paid more attention and noticed that with this mode, the convection fan is on.  I have no way to adjust that or turn it off while still using the stone element.  I will have to try a lower temperature next time.